Not that I have anything to say but in attempt to keep up a daily countdown, I shall fill you in with the random stuff going on in my life.
Multiphrenia is when you have an over-population of the self, filling in too many roles and obligations, and is Gergen's dismal outlook to the postmodern life. It's not a medical condition, but a societal one. I think I have it. Sometimes my head feels like it is going to explode and yesterday I had only five hours of wakeful sleep. Therefore today I am rather tired, but it is Patrick's last lecture and last tutorial so I am determined to enjoy them to the end. After that I am meeting two Couchsurfers that I met last week during a vegetarian dinner gathering, and we are going rock-climbing together. This will be my first time. I wonder if I'll like it.
Research matters - I am going through some key contentions, over and over again, and I'm not able to find any solution, but I have to because I need to start writing. I have a faint voice in my head reproaching me for not putting more time into my work, what with the evenings of the rest of the week being all occupied with some random matter or another: rock-climbing tonight, tomorrow I am thinking of going for dragonboat training, Thursday and Friday I'm hosting a French girl, Saturday we have a barbecue after dragonboat training, and Sunday I have a dinner appointment. But another voice in my head insists that I have all the time in the world if I plan properly. And yet I am wasting 15 minutes of that time putting in a filler blog post.
Yup. I definitely have multiphrenia.
Showing posts with label outings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label outings. Show all posts
My long weekend.
My head has been all over the place today and my work productivity has suffered, but because of the mellowness spilled over from the weekend, I am not worrying too much about it. I am right now in the office waiting for my insurance guy to come and give me some paperwork, then I can go back and cook noodles for dinner. I'm going to have maggi curry with tomatoes and chinese cabbage and a single egg. It's going to be awesome.
So Singapore sprung a public holiday on me on Friday (Good Friday), so I spent a leisurely day doing laundry and cleaning my hiking shoes with a toothbrush. That's how much I love them. They look brand new now, all ready for my next encounter with nature, which will probably be in Europe =D. In the evening Skinny David and I went to check out a club at Clarke Quay for some local bands. An acquaintance of mine was playing, so I thought I'd check if he was any good. (He wasn't.) But we were compensated by two other bands playing ska punk and I love love love the ska beat! Plus it was a very pleasant evening as David makes great conversation and is quite hopeless at eating melting double scoop ice-cream cones which makes for good entertainment.
Saturday came and I lepaked at home doing nothing in particular until evening, when I met up with Jen Hui and had dinner at Annalakshmi. This is my favourite dinner place in Singapore by far, an Indian restaurant in Chinatown. The concept is that you pay a price that you think is fair. The first couple of times I went, I paid S$10, but Saturday I paid S$15 because I like the place so much. Hanging out with Jen Hui, needless to say, is awesome. It's a feeling that is difficult to describe, maybe it's because we go way back and we're so familiar with each other that I feel completely secure and comfortable with her. And of course, Jen Hui's Jen Hui. It's impossible not to love her. After dinner we went to Esplanade to check out the free music at the waterfront that they have every weekend, but because they were playing extremely loud music that I wasn't really into, we retired into a cafe where we both hot chocolate and tiramisu, and continued our banter.
Sunday was the day that I volunteered with the Really Really Free Market Singapore. I had first read about this initiative on Wikipedia when I was researching gift economy, and I was really surprised when Eli, my CSer from Switzerland told me that she had stumbled upon it in Singapore! (KL has this initiative called Food Not Bombs, and apparently they had the RRFM also, 2 years ago, yeah! I wonder if they're still doing it.) Naturally I had to go, and when I learnt that they were looking for volunteers I jumped at the chance. So I spent about two hours there folding clothes and organizing stuff and smiling at the throngs of foreign workers who came into the market, and it was amazing.
It's such a great feeling to be able to tell people: everything here is free, just take what you want. I gave away my Talentime DVD (it was snapped up within 5 minutes, yay!) and an unopened miniature craft set, which also disappeared in a jiffy. I got a new book, Doing Good Well and an old book Don Quixote that Asa recommended some time ago. Also, after dinner, there was this amazingly cool yoga teacher sharing tips (for free of course - it is the RRFM) and he asked me to learn taichi, haha. Since I'm Chinese and all that. But I learnt a lot about yoga and the spiritual side of it, and I'm going to email him for further information - I feel that we're very much on the same channel and it would be brilliant to have a practising yogi to talk to about spirituality.
Also I got lovely emails, from Canadian CSer Daniel to keep in touch, and also from Silver, and I got my first interview consent from this guy from Switzerland who's organizing the CS Paella Party, which I'm going to this July! Damn happening online too =D Anyway I'm getting hungry, so I'll just leave you with this wonderful picture that Nex sent me today:
Couchsurfer dude! Awesome!
So Singapore sprung a public holiday on me on Friday (Good Friday), so I spent a leisurely day doing laundry and cleaning my hiking shoes with a toothbrush. That's how much I love them. They look brand new now, all ready for my next encounter with nature, which will probably be in Europe =D. In the evening Skinny David and I went to check out a club at Clarke Quay for some local bands. An acquaintance of mine was playing, so I thought I'd check if he was any good. (He wasn't.) But we were compensated by two other bands playing ska punk and I love love love the ska beat! Plus it was a very pleasant evening as David makes great conversation and is quite hopeless at eating melting double scoop ice-cream cones which makes for good entertainment.
Saturday came and I lepaked at home doing nothing in particular until evening, when I met up with Jen Hui and had dinner at Annalakshmi. This is my favourite dinner place in Singapore by far, an Indian restaurant in Chinatown. The concept is that you pay a price that you think is fair. The first couple of times I went, I paid S$10, but Saturday I paid S$15 because I like the place so much. Hanging out with Jen Hui, needless to say, is awesome. It's a feeling that is difficult to describe, maybe it's because we go way back and we're so familiar with each other that I feel completely secure and comfortable with her. And of course, Jen Hui's Jen Hui. It's impossible not to love her. After dinner we went to Esplanade to check out the free music at the waterfront that they have every weekend, but because they were playing extremely loud music that I wasn't really into, we retired into a cafe where we both hot chocolate and tiramisu, and continued our banter.
Sunday was the day that I volunteered with the Really Really Free Market Singapore. I had first read about this initiative on Wikipedia when I was researching gift economy, and I was really surprised when Eli, my CSer from Switzerland told me that she had stumbled upon it in Singapore! (KL has this initiative called Food Not Bombs, and apparently they had the RRFM also, 2 years ago, yeah! I wonder if they're still doing it.) Naturally I had to go, and when I learnt that they were looking for volunteers I jumped at the chance. So I spent about two hours there folding clothes and organizing stuff and smiling at the throngs of foreign workers who came into the market, and it was amazing.
It's such a great feeling to be able to tell people: everything here is free, just take what you want. I gave away my Talentime DVD (it was snapped up within 5 minutes, yay!) and an unopened miniature craft set, which also disappeared in a jiffy. I got a new book, Doing Good Well and an old book Don Quixote that Asa recommended some time ago. Also, after dinner, there was this amazingly cool yoga teacher sharing tips (for free of course - it is the RRFM) and he asked me to learn taichi, haha. Since I'm Chinese and all that. But I learnt a lot about yoga and the spiritual side of it, and I'm going to email him for further information - I feel that we're very much on the same channel and it would be brilliant to have a practising yogi to talk to about spirituality.
Also I got lovely emails, from Canadian CSer Daniel to keep in touch, and also from Silver, and I got my first interview consent from this guy from Switzerland who's organizing the CS Paella Party, which I'm going to this July! Damn happening online too =D Anyway I'm getting hungry, so I'll just leave you with this wonderful picture that Nex sent me today:
Couchsurfer dude! Awesome!
Should I?
photo credit: here.*update at 3:50am*
Awful cloudy out there... I see like, one star, from my window. Think I'll just go back to bed, although there is this nagging feeling that I should do it anyway since I'm up... but walking 25 minutes to the rooftop of my school under such weather conditions seems to be foolish and I should not yield to my stubborn streak. (I have more than one stubborn streak apparently. Another stubborn streak who does not yield to stubborn streaks.)
Sigh. At least I learnt more about meteors and comets and constellations during my meteor shower fervour yesterday afternoon. Shirked all my duties too. Sigh.
*yawns**goes back to bed sadly*
The Brag and Misc.
Suddenly remembered that I should brag about cycling about 36kms in the presence of crazy taxis and monstrous trucks from East Coast Park to around Commonwealth and back, from about 10:30pm to 5am. Inclusive of food stops.
I, who have not biked more than 10 times after being taught by KF's little brother (then 12) four years ago (along a busy street with tons of curious onlookers - was not a proud moment for me), and I managed to pull it off without scraping any skin. Bruises however I have aplenty, result of sudden brakes and near misses of pedestrians. What were they doing awake at 2am anyway?
The only person who bled was Skinny David, the best cyclist among the four of us actually, who walked into a drain after the bikes were returned. Hence proven that good cyclists may not necessarily be good walkers.
Research has again met a bottleneck. Other aspects of life range from simple to complicated. I love my sociology lessons. Housemate David has not moved in. In fact I haven't heard from him in a while. Is it healthy to not hear from your housemate for a while, especially when he has not moved in?
The decoration of my room is almost finished. We will be holding a party there next Saturday bersempena Yuen's birthday. The theme is fruits + alcohol (but of course) and Yuen has named it "Toxic Fruit Theme" and there will be board games too which I am going to loan from our Boardgame Society. It will be great. I have not started hosting CSers yet. I thought that I might wait until Housemate David settles in, so that we can get used to each other first. I hope he shows up soon.
Am reading Lady Chatterley's Lover in lieu of academic reading in my room, since the loo is too far away. Here's a good quote for whoever who's been dumped or is looking for his/her other soulmate, who gets bludgeoned on the head by the cliche about all the good fish in the sea:
"There's lots of good fish in the sea... maybe... but the vast masses seem to be mackerel or herring, and if you're not mackerel or herring yourself, you are likely to find very few good fish in the sea." Amen to that, D.H. Lawrence!
I, who have not biked more than 10 times after being taught by KF's little brother (then 12) four years ago (along a busy street with tons of curious onlookers - was not a proud moment for me), and I managed to pull it off without scraping any skin. Bruises however I have aplenty, result of sudden brakes and near misses of pedestrians. What were they doing awake at 2am anyway?
The only person who bled was Skinny David, the best cyclist among the four of us actually, who walked into a drain after the bikes were returned. Hence proven that good cyclists may not necessarily be good walkers.
Research has again met a bottleneck. Other aspects of life range from simple to complicated. I love my sociology lessons. Housemate David has not moved in. In fact I haven't heard from him in a while. Is it healthy to not hear from your housemate for a while, especially when he has not moved in?
The decoration of my room is almost finished. We will be holding a party there next Saturday bersempena Yuen's birthday. The theme is fruits + alcohol (but of course) and Yuen has named it "Toxic Fruit Theme" and there will be board games too which I am going to loan from our Boardgame Society. It will be great. I have not started hosting CSers yet. I thought that I might wait until Housemate David settles in, so that we can get used to each other first. I hope he shows up soon.
Am reading Lady Chatterley's Lover in lieu of academic reading in my room, since the loo is too far away. Here's a good quote for whoever who's been dumped or is looking for his/her other soulmate, who gets bludgeoned on the head by the cliche about all the good fish in the sea:
"There's lots of good fish in the sea... maybe... but the vast masses seem to be mackerel or herring, and if you're not mackerel or herring yourself, you are likely to find very few good fish in the sea." Amen to that, D.H. Lawrence!
Jason Mraz is wise.
Quoted from Jason Mraz's blog,
"To you, my fun-employed friend, I encourage you to sit for only a few minutes and listen to the voice inside of you. It knows exactly what it wants to do. YOU just have to stop getting in its way. Forget how difficult your dreams may seem to achieve. Ignore the idea that your family and friends will think you’re weird. Drop all your doubts about financial concerns and just start living your life according to your purpose. The only thing that has to be in place for you to BE IT now is your attitude. Your life is your movie. Be your own hero and make it your favorite film to watch."
---
I've got Robert's CD! He's such a sweet thing - as a gift for me being vegetarian he sent me a self-compiled music CD titled "Vegetable Junkie", and I've just got it from Skinny David who got it from the person who stays in my previous dorm room which address Robert sent it to. Complicated process yes, but I've finally got it. Happy-happy belaka.
---
Small breakthroughs in research - not enough to be groundbreaking but enough to keep me going and asking questions. And asking questions about my questions, such as - is this question a stupid question? My dialogues with myself are recorded in my research journal. I have also developed a habit of articulating my thoughts when I am walking alone. I've found out that people do stare at people who talk to themselves.
---
Tonight I am going night cycling at East Coast with Yuen, Tony Twentytwo and Skinny David. I can do it, I will not fall, I can do it, I will not fall. I refuse to fail! Hooaarrrghhhh!! (Val and Marten argue that Asians sound like this, which we totally don't. We don't! Hoaarrrgghh!!!)
---
How does courtship work in this modern age?
---
Looking forward to my new mattress. I went to Ikea with Jia Ling yesterday and she couldn't believe that I have bought a single bed. She is strangely obsessed with me getting a double bed. I bought a laundry bag, a rubbish bin and a thing to put my gadgets in. No double beds, sorry.
---
Gypsy Kings is the shiznit.
---
OK break over. Back to being productive.
"To you, my fun-employed friend, I encourage you to sit for only a few minutes and listen to the voice inside of you. It knows exactly what it wants to do. YOU just have to stop getting in its way. Forget how difficult your dreams may seem to achieve. Ignore the idea that your family and friends will think you’re weird. Drop all your doubts about financial concerns and just start living your life according to your purpose. The only thing that has to be in place for you to BE IT now is your attitude. Your life is your movie. Be your own hero and make it your favorite film to watch."
---
I've got Robert's CD! He's such a sweet thing - as a gift for me being vegetarian he sent me a self-compiled music CD titled "Vegetable Junkie", and I've just got it from Skinny David who got it from the person who stays in my previous dorm room which address Robert sent it to. Complicated process yes, but I've finally got it. Happy-happy belaka.
---
Small breakthroughs in research - not enough to be groundbreaking but enough to keep me going and asking questions. And asking questions about my questions, such as - is this question a stupid question? My dialogues with myself are recorded in my research journal. I have also developed a habit of articulating my thoughts when I am walking alone. I've found out that people do stare at people who talk to themselves.
---
Tonight I am going night cycling at East Coast with Yuen, Tony Twentytwo and Skinny David. I can do it, I will not fall, I can do it, I will not fall. I refuse to fail! Hooaarrrghhhh!! (Val and Marten argue that Asians sound like this, which we totally don't. We don't! Hoaarrrgghh!!!)
---
How does courtship work in this modern age?
---
Looking forward to my new mattress. I went to Ikea with Jia Ling yesterday and she couldn't believe that I have bought a single bed. She is strangely obsessed with me getting a double bed. I bought a laundry bag, a rubbish bin and a thing to put my gadgets in. No double beds, sorry.
---
Gypsy Kings is the shiznit.
---
OK break over. Back to being productive.
Random Saturday Episode 32175436
Today I ventured into the realm of Desperate Singledom. I have been in singledom for a while (two years actually) but this is the dark little corner where lonely souls succumb to their biological clocks and physiological needs and decide to cast all caution to the winds, all pride to the elements, and hence - all courting to the public.
This, is the world of singles events. I figured that it was an event where everybody was single. Note that no dating is mentioned - everything is very tactfully implied - you're here to widen your social circle and to network and to learn how to make a pizza - until they bring out the superbly cheesy icebreaker games, complete with the alternate guy-girl standing arrangements. Ah. Puberty revisited. Everyone trying to inconspicuously check everyone out, failing miserably, because the underlying motive of the event lies thickly in the atmosphere. We are here to make friends and eventually make babies. Make no mistake about it.
I was there to make pizzas. Sesat sikit.
After the awkward and rather ineffective ice-breaking session, they divided us into groups of four, forced cute aprons on us and sent us to the pizzeria just downstairs where we would learn how to make pizzas. Ingredients were supplied, all readily measured. We poured the yeast and sugar into the cup of water. Because there was no time we didn't wait for it to germinate (hope that's the right word). Salt, garlic powder and oil were added. Stir stir stir. Then we poured it onto the flour. Knead knead knead. Because there was no time to wait for it to rise, ready pizza bases magically materialized out of nowhere and we were given ingredients to spread onto the base.
With the facade of a healthy group activity out of the way into the oven, the guys and girls were sat down and rotated periodically. Essentially like a speed dating kind of thing. I don't think I like it very much. I don't think it brings out the best in people. I was bored and repeating my pitch (NTU, communications, Internet and trust, travelling) and I was judging and objectifying all the men that I saw. At any other circumstances I might meet any of these people and actually make friends with them. But in this dating framework there's only two categories - the yes-I-might-date-him or hell-no. Being in a state of constant disuse the first category has pretty much shrunk into nothingness. The number of hell-nos is dispiriting, I tell you.
At the end of the event, we were given feedback forms and we were to write down the names of the people that caught our interest, the yes-I-might-date-hims. The organizer would pair the matching ones up.
I drew a smiley on my people of interest list, folded it neatly and slotted it into the feedback box. I don't want to waste anybody's time. I'm happy the way I am now. Unattached, uncommitted, free as a bird =) Funny how a singles event affirmed that.
Random conversation snippet:
You speak really good English, where are you from?
Oh I'm from Malaysia.
You don't have a Malaysian accent! Must be because you've been in Singapore for long.
Well fuck you I've only been here for a year.
Oh.
This, is the world of singles events. I figured that it was an event where everybody was single. Note that no dating is mentioned - everything is very tactfully implied - you're here to widen your social circle and to network and to learn how to make a pizza - until they bring out the superbly cheesy icebreaker games, complete with the alternate guy-girl standing arrangements. Ah. Puberty revisited. Everyone trying to inconspicuously check everyone out, failing miserably, because the underlying motive of the event lies thickly in the atmosphere. We are here to make friends and eventually make babies. Make no mistake about it.
I was there to make pizzas. Sesat sikit.
After the awkward and rather ineffective ice-breaking session, they divided us into groups of four, forced cute aprons on us and sent us to the pizzeria just downstairs where we would learn how to make pizzas. Ingredients were supplied, all readily measured. We poured the yeast and sugar into the cup of water. Because there was no time we didn't wait for it to germinate (hope that's the right word). Salt, garlic powder and oil were added. Stir stir stir. Then we poured it onto the flour. Knead knead knead. Because there was no time to wait for it to rise, ready pizza bases magically materialized out of nowhere and we were given ingredients to spread onto the base.
With the facade of a healthy group activity out of the way into the oven, the guys and girls were sat down and rotated periodically. Essentially like a speed dating kind of thing. I don't think I like it very much. I don't think it brings out the best in people. I was bored and repeating my pitch (NTU, communications, Internet and trust, travelling) and I was judging and objectifying all the men that I saw. At any other circumstances I might meet any of these people and actually make friends with them. But in this dating framework there's only two categories - the yes-I-might-date-him or hell-no. Being in a state of constant disuse the first category has pretty much shrunk into nothingness. The number of hell-nos is dispiriting, I tell you.
At the end of the event, we were given feedback forms and we were to write down the names of the people that caught our interest, the yes-I-might-date-hims. The organizer would pair the matching ones up.
I drew a smiley on my people of interest list, folded it neatly and slotted it into the feedback box. I don't want to waste anybody's time. I'm happy the way I am now. Unattached, uncommitted, free as a bird =) Funny how a singles event affirmed that.
Random conversation snippet:
You speak really good English, where are you from?
Oh I'm from Malaysia.
You don't have a Malaysian accent! Must be because you've been in Singapore for long.
Oh.
when it rains it pours
i am now at jia ling's, using her laptop which has a different keyboard layout from mine, so i shall not bother to caps this post.
the reason why i'm here is because we were at singapore general hospital (hereforth known as sgh) in the accidents and emergency room (a&e) yesterday till about 11pm so i decided to stay over. jia ling was walking down a stationary escalator yesterday and landed wrongly on the half step, so she hurt her ankle and rode an ambulance to the hospital. i'm secretly disappointed that i didn't get to go on the ambulance with her, because they would only allow one to accompany, and there was me and another friend callie, so we decided to do it the adult way and take the public transport to sgh instead. (it's a sad day when you can't use tantrums to get your way anymore.)
yesterday was easily one of the most eventful days that i've had in singapore to date. it started off like any other day.
no actually it did not. i started the day by dressing up for an indian wedding. jia ling's colleague's daughter was getting married and since we were close like that, i decided to go give her my best blessings. chose something to wear, asked namrita if it was appropriate, apparently it was not, changed into something else, and set off to meet jia ling. the wedding was held in a hall in an indian temple nearby farrer park mrt station. sitting a little too far away from the stage, i couldn't really see much except the elaborate decorations of the setup and the golden finery adorned by the bride. the bride was beautiful. the groom was cute in a bashful way. at the end of the ceremony which i couldn't see much of, we made a line and went onstage and blessed the bride and the groom by scattering yellow rice on their heads.
and then we had a buffet lunch of vegetarian indian food, and left with door gifts prettily wrapped. we haven't unwrapped ours yet so i don't know what's inside.
after that, jia ling and i went to clarke quay to meet her friends irene and callie. reason being, callie and i were going to tag along with jia ling for her weekly dragonboat rowing exercise. i know, random right? jia ling, my partner-in-crime for doing random things in singapore (such as taking the mrt to barely-inhabited punggol to take pictures of lalang) entertains herself in curious ways, and because i also have a penchant for spontaneity and randomness, she invites me along sometimes.
so we went to kallang river to get some serious workout. oh and if you're wondering i did not go into the water with my dress and heels. did have some leftover makeup on my face but since there wasn't much to begin with that wasn't a problem. went into a toilet and came out two inches shorter in beachwear.
the dragonboat team we joined was the british team but there were also many other nationalities in the team (commonwealth yo). since many of the members were actually in putrajaya for a race (home T_T), there were only two boats that went into the water. jia ling went on the other boat with the experienced ones, while me and callie stayed on the newbie boat. along the river we saw teams of other countries, the germans who rowed how i imagined germans would row (like germans) and the irish team which was sponsored by a pub, among others.
i'm still waiting for my waist or arms to hurt. if my arms hurt, it would mean that my boat-rowing posture was wrong. since you're supposed to twist your waist and use the strength of the body instead of the arm. great for losing love handles, it seems, but after every row there is a huge barrel of beer waiting to cancel the workout out! but since half the team was gone for the putrajaya race yesterday, there was no beer T_T bollocks.
speaking of canceling, we had an entirely stupid game on the boat called tug of war, where half of the boat would sit facing the other half, and row furiously to see which direction was stronger. completely waste of energy but the stupidity of the game kept me very much amused and i put in all of my energy to it. because, let's face it, most games are stupid and energy-wasting anyway. chasing, hitting, kicking, protecting an inanimate thing called "a ball" - multiple cases in point. it's not like a bridge construction where you actually have a bridge after hard labour. the dragonboat tug of war is just like a representation of all the games out there. useless but tremendous fun!
after the dragonboat rowing we went to bugis, to pass something to jia ling's friend and to have steamboat. only part of the plan came true. after jia ling stumbled unceremoniously down the escalator and our failure to get the mall staff to send us to the nearest hospital (the bastards), we ended up waiting a fair bit for the paramedics to arrive and bundle her off to sgh. the ambulance costs sgd80 to hail, by the way. missed opportunity T_T
so callie and i reached sgh and went into a&e to find jia ling. had our temperatures screened because of the h1n1 scare. then there she was, forlornly huddled under a blanket on a wheelchair waiting at the x-ray dept.
we were in the a&e from about 8:30pm to 11pm. here's an interesting fact for you - sgh, or sgh within the proximity of a&e anyway, does not have a single working food outlet after 8:30pm. what the staff themselves do is to order mcdonalds if they get really hungry. this makes no economic sense in any way. or maybe the hospital's profiteering from Cheers, a convenience store, in the neighbouring block, where everybody (who does not order mcdonalds) ends up in, for dinner.
we had a picnic of sorts in a&e, eating nachos and cheese, microwaved pizza and instant noodles all bought from Cheers. and being asian and biologically wired to take pictures at any circumstance however dire, we found ourselves taking group self portraits with the food. also involuntary was the peace sign. it's almost a reflex - camera lens = peace sign. that's how we work it yo.
jia ling was diagnosed to have an unobvious fracture in her ankle and had to get a pair of crutches. i think she must have forked out about SGD250-300. some of which can be claimed from insurance. the good news is she has got a six-day mc to get out of work. the bad news? she's a teacher and it's school holidays now. irony is such a kick in the crotch sometimes.
anyway i'm typing this while she's sleeping beside me. later i will be doing some shopping for her, as she will be pretty much incapacitated for the following few days. luckily she's staying in a master bedroom (attached bathroom) and has an electric kettle in her room. if i am confined within my room i will probably rot in a pool of my own excrement. i will end this post on that disturbing mental image because i'm sleepy now.
Buzz buzz
3am! Just got back to my dorm, and am scheduled to wake up at 7am, and I haven't packed my bag to go back KL yet. And I am a little tipsy. Not drunk, mind you. Tipsy.
And as always when packing is involved, blogging is in order. It's like a ritual of some sort. A ritual of procrastination, but a ritual nonetheless, even when you only have less than 4 hours to sleep, heck, I'll sleep on the bus then. Ain't nothing stopping me from packing procrastination, no sir!
Also bopping along Viva la Vida by Coldplay. It's the most upbeat song ever.
Ladies' night was a blast, and Ladies' Night Free Admission is a mighty wonderful marketing ploy. Wonderful for girls anyway. A great night out, four girls, crazy dancing, two bars, 5-6 drinks for each of us, a live band to scream and sashay to, and it cost me what, 10 bucks? That was for the taxi fee btw. If I didn't live as far as Jurong it would've cost next to nothing.
So Gayo, Namrata, me and Suruchi went out tonight - we wanted to go to this place called Double O, and it took us a lot of asking for directions until we finally got there, and then we got rejected =_= because Gayo had inappropriate shoes (she was wearing slippers). Then we went to this other place where they were checking IDs, and Namrata didn't bring hers, so I gave her my NTU debit card, and after the guard checked it he asked Namrata what her name was. She said "Tun-E". WTF, haha... but anyway he was nice and let us go in regardless.
Good company, all of us resonated energy, sometimes when you go clubbing with some crowd that are not sporting they tend to just suck the energy out of everyone, but all of us amplified our energy instead, when one started to bop the others will just be infected, so we had such a great night out dancing! Especially the second place where we went to which looked like it was for the older crowd, but then around 1am the live band came on, and it was so cool! Even had dancers and stuff, and the singers were really good at heating up the atmosphere, once all four of us were just flailing our arms (like enthusiastic but amateurish dancers do) in our cubicle, and the singer looked directly at us and sang a part with full eye contact, I was so pumped up =D
And then they played Jai Ho and we were ecstatic and just Bollywood dancing away. Damn high.
We've made promises to go out again when I'm back in Singapore. And Namrata's going to show me her Indian wear wardrobe so I will know what choices I have when shopping for my first
salwar kameez or kurta. I'm still a little confused by the names.
All in all, a terrific night out - and I've managed to waste 30 minutes blogging. I really need to get a shower because I am super sticky all over. Electrocuted octopus dance (quote from Chindi) -induced perspiration yo.
And as always when packing is involved, blogging is in order. It's like a ritual of some sort. A ritual of procrastination, but a ritual nonetheless, even when you only have less than 4 hours to sleep, heck, I'll sleep on the bus then. Ain't nothing stopping me from packing procrastination, no sir!
Also bopping along Viva la Vida by Coldplay. It's the most upbeat song ever.
Ladies' night was a blast, and Ladies' Night Free Admission is a mighty wonderful marketing ploy. Wonderful for girls anyway. A great night out, four girls, crazy dancing, two bars, 5-6 drinks for each of us, a live band to scream and sashay to, and it cost me what, 10 bucks? That was for the taxi fee btw. If I didn't live as far as Jurong it would've cost next to nothing.
So Gayo, Namrata, me and Suruchi went out tonight - we wanted to go to this place called Double O, and it took us a lot of asking for directions until we finally got there, and then we got rejected =_= because Gayo had inappropriate shoes (she was wearing slippers). Then we went to this other place where they were checking IDs, and Namrata didn't bring hers, so I gave her my NTU debit card, and after the guard checked it he asked Namrata what her name was. She said "Tun-E". WTF, haha... but anyway he was nice and let us go in regardless.
Good company, all of us resonated energy, sometimes when you go clubbing with some crowd that are not sporting they tend to just suck the energy out of everyone, but all of us amplified our energy instead, when one started to bop the others will just be infected, so we had such a great night out dancing! Especially the second place where we went to which looked like it was for the older crowd, but then around 1am the live band came on, and it was so cool! Even had dancers and stuff, and the singers were really good at heating up the atmosphere, once all four of us were just flailing our arms (like enthusiastic but amateurish dancers do) in our cubicle, and the singer looked directly at us and sang a part with full eye contact, I was so pumped up =D
And then they played Jai Ho and we were ecstatic and just Bollywood dancing away. Damn high.
We've made promises to go out again when I'm back in Singapore. And Namrata's going to show me her Indian wear wardrobe so I will know what choices I have when shopping for my first
salwar kameez or kurta. I'm still a little confused by the names.
All in all, a terrific night out - and I've managed to waste 30 minutes blogging. I really need to get a shower because I am super sticky all over. Electrocuted octopus dance (quote from Chindi) -induced perspiration yo.
Isi terpesong.
What do you do when you have written about 70% of a paper and find out that er... it... kinda... went out of topic
T_T
Change title? Try to gloss it over? Die die argue - what we say, cure the dead horse like it's alive?
No. You procrastinate and hope that the paper will rewrite itself while you blog.
I had a great night of sleep yesterday. Slept at 10:30pm and was knocked out till about 6:30am. Then woke up, turned to the other side, and slept some more till 8am. Then stared at the wall map until about 8:30am. Then got my lazy ass to school when I reaffirmed the nagging feeling I had all weekend - isi terpesong... now trying to figure out the next course of action.
I think I have a twisted pinky which makes it rather irritating to type. *flexes fingers* *gets irritated* *flexes fingers some more*
May be going back to KL this weekend to do some interviews for another term paper. This semester is flying by with record speed... My exams are less than a month away (!!) but I still have tons of coursework left, but I'm really glad that after this sem I will not have any more compulsory classes, but can choose to sit in and just learn without the pressure, damn it.
Intermission rant - I still don't get it why finals are weighted at 50% of the total marks. Why would they base 50% of my marks on a mere 3 hours when I spend at least ten times more hours on my term paper??
Oh yeah, I went for the Red Cross charity concert in our school last Saturday with Apurva, an undergrad from India whom I met during the Toy Museum outing. Most of the performances were quite high-school-ish - reminded me so much of Chong Hwa! Complete with the totally kayu emcees and badly rehearsed on-stage humour.
They had 二十四节令鼓 (played by like 8 people) and it was nowhere near Chong Hwa's standard ok... super miss Chong Hwa 二十四节令鼓, the people performing the other day just didn't possess the kind of collective energy and the war-like stance which is what I really liked about 二十四节令鼓 in Chong Hwa, really powerful stuff. Instead theirs was quite lethargic and was scattered sometimes *narrow eyes in disapproval*
And then there was this performance by an acclaimed pianist (according to the kayu emcees). Pianists play the piano. Singers sing. Some pianists may be blessed with good voices and hence can sing as they play. Mr. Acclaimed Pianist was not blessed as such. I don't understand why he chose to play two Chinese pop songs and to overpower his acclaimed piano skills with his lacklustre voice and weird pronunciation. He did make me miss YJ though - not because I associated YJ with his crappy performance, but because he was singing this song 一首简单的歌 by 王力宏.
His pronunciation and slightly off key tones made this progression:
一首简单的歌 ==> 一首煎蛋的歌 ==> 一首Zyan Tan 的歌
So yes. I missed Zyan Tan (YJ).
I know a lot of effort is put into organizing stuff like these, especially a charity concert with noble intentions, and they raised like 7k for the Red Cross Disabled Home. I just can't resist to make mean comments about crappy performances however noble the intentions were.
But! All is not lost! There was one performance that saved it all - and that was The Strikeforce, a drum team which was so uplifting, so passionate, so crazily fun that all my grouses were wiped out and I was thankful that I went to this concert instead of just throwing the ticket away. Good performances like these - they just make you want to laugh and to clap and to whoop (Weeeee!) and to revel in the raw energy. You could see that the performers had fun. They were dancing to their beat and laughing, like they weren't performing but just a bunch of crazy kids enjoying making synchronized noise.
Some idea of how The Strikeforce is like:
The passive crowd went wild from being all glazed from tolerating the previous acts. I couldn't stop smiling. Then a local celebrity came in to perform as the last act and it was all =_= again. OMG the stupid jokes (if you can't execute humour with finesse, then just pretend to be cool and not talk) and he was like "Careful with my guitar" when the emcees came to pretend to fawn over him (really badly rehearsed) after his first performance. Snooty kid.
OK I am gratified with all the mean comments. Back to the real world where I shall... figure out what to do with my terpesong piece. Joy.
T_T
Change title? Try to gloss it over? Die die argue - what we say, cure the dead horse like it's alive?
No. You procrastinate and hope that the paper will rewrite itself while you blog.
I had a great night of sleep yesterday. Slept at 10:30pm and was knocked out till about 6:30am. Then woke up, turned to the other side, and slept some more till 8am. Then stared at the wall map until about 8:30am. Then got my lazy ass to school when I reaffirmed the nagging feeling I had all weekend - isi terpesong... now trying to figure out the next course of action.
I think I have a twisted pinky which makes it rather irritating to type. *flexes fingers* *gets irritated* *flexes fingers some more*
May be going back to KL this weekend to do some interviews for another term paper. This semester is flying by with record speed... My exams are less than a month away (!!) but I still have tons of coursework left, but I'm really glad that after this sem I will not have any more compulsory classes, but can choose to sit in and just learn without the pressure, damn it.
Intermission rant - I still don't get it why finals are weighted at 50% of the total marks. Why would they base 50% of my marks on a mere 3 hours when I spend at least ten times more hours on my term paper??
Oh yeah, I went for the Red Cross charity concert in our school last Saturday with Apurva, an undergrad from India whom I met during the Toy Museum outing. Most of the performances were quite high-school-ish - reminded me so much of Chong Hwa! Complete with the totally kayu emcees and badly rehearsed on-stage humour.
They had 二十四节令鼓 (played by like 8 people) and it was nowhere near Chong Hwa's standard ok... super miss Chong Hwa 二十四节令鼓, the people performing the other day just didn't possess the kind of collective energy and the war-like stance which is what I really liked about 二十四节令鼓 in Chong Hwa, really powerful stuff. Instead theirs was quite lethargic and was scattered sometimes *narrow eyes in disapproval*
And then there was this performance by an acclaimed pianist (according to the kayu emcees). Pianists play the piano. Singers sing. Some pianists may be blessed with good voices and hence can sing as they play. Mr. Acclaimed Pianist was not blessed as such. I don't understand why he chose to play two Chinese pop songs and to overpower his acclaimed piano skills with his lacklustre voice and weird pronunciation. He did make me miss YJ though - not because I associated YJ with his crappy performance, but because he was singing this song 一首简单的歌 by 王力宏.
His pronunciation and slightly off key tones made this progression:
一首简单的歌 ==> 一首煎蛋的歌 ==> 一首Zyan Tan 的歌
So yes. I missed Zyan Tan (YJ).
I know a lot of effort is put into organizing stuff like these, especially a charity concert with noble intentions, and they raised like 7k for the Red Cross Disabled Home. I just can't resist to make mean comments about crappy performances however noble the intentions were.
But! All is not lost! There was one performance that saved it all - and that was The Strikeforce, a drum team which was so uplifting, so passionate, so crazily fun that all my grouses were wiped out and I was thankful that I went to this concert instead of just throwing the ticket away. Good performances like these - they just make you want to laugh and to clap and to whoop (Weeeee!) and to revel in the raw energy. You could see that the performers had fun. They were dancing to their beat and laughing, like they weren't performing but just a bunch of crazy kids enjoying making synchronized noise.
Some idea of how The Strikeforce is like:
The passive crowd went wild from being all glazed from tolerating the previous acts. I couldn't stop smiling. Then a local celebrity came in to perform as the last act and it was all =_= again. OMG the stupid jokes (if you can't execute humour with finesse, then just pretend to be cool and not talk) and he was like "Careful with my guitar" when the emcees came to pretend to fawn over him (really badly rehearsed) after his first performance. Snooty kid.
OK I am gratified with all the mean comments. Back to the real world where I shall... figure out what to do with my terpesong piece. Joy.
I'm so cool, I got celebrity friends, yeah!
I was doing grocery shopping tonight, at Fairprice Xtra in Jurong Point 2, planning to have fruit meals tomorrow since I'll be chilling out in the dorm the whole day, when I suddenly remembered this trail of ants wandering aimlessly on my desk this morning. Seriously, I tried following the trail but it started nowhere and did not end anywhere either. It was as if the ants just decided to take a walk, just because they could. Now that bothered the hell out of me because I like knowing where ants come from and where they're going. I like to know that they're fulfilling some purpose in life, not just taking a walk out just because it's a fine day. Stupid aimless ants. I didn't get fruits at the end.
So anyway. It was a good day today. It was one of those days when you've got programmes all lined up and random stuff happen in between the programmes filling in the gaps. There was this thing organized by the International Student Centre, going to the MINT toy museum, at a steal of SGD6 inclusive of to-and-fro bus rides and the entrance fees. The original entrance fees cost SGD15 per pax ok. (Wahey, score!) So we gathered at the NTU Chinese Heritage Centre in the morning, expecting to go to the toy museum, when they made us watch some documentaries on overseas Chinese and take a tour around the Chinese Heritage Centre. I don't mind it so much 'coz I like history and stuff but what I didn't like was how they only casually mentioned the Chinese Heritage Centre tour like in one line in the email, and blew up the toy museum, when actually the Chinese Heritage Centre tour took longer than the toy museum tour! Just felt like the toy museum was some kind of ploy to trick us into going into the Chinese Heritage Centre.
"Chinese Heritage Centre" is very tiresome to type.
So then we started the toy museum tour finally at 1pm. The museum was alright. I think SGD15 is a bit pricey, but since I paid only SGD6 (inclusive of transport, wahey, score!) it was okay. The morning of learning about overseas Chinese and the history of NTU was worth it after all. I had made an appointment with Yuen to meet up with a bunch of people "looking for intellectual discussion" at 7:30pm, so since I was free till then me and Roman went to SMU to play boardgames at the Settler's Cafe. And yes I kicked his ass big time, thank you for asking.
So at 7:15pm I met up with Yuen who was in this other meeting with this chap who shoots artsy photos and videos. Yuen's in theatre. She gets featured in newspapers often. She performs for international audiences. I'm so cool, I got celebrity friends, yeah! After the brief meeting we met up with the intellectual crowd and talked philosophy, politics, near death experiences and the Mormon episode in South Park. It was more fun than the toy museum but less fun than board games. Just wanted to give you a scale. Yeah I know all this "intellectual" stuff sounds dodgy and mildly disturbing, long story on how I got into this, lazy to elaborate, Yuen broadens my social circle and she's a celebrity and I'm so cool, I got celebrity friends, yeah!
After that, took the MRT home, stopped by Fairprice Xtra, didn't buy anything, and finally came back. I got two blog comments and three emails, yay! Although you guys aren't celebrities I love you anyway ;) mwah mwah
ok sleepy already bye.
So anyway. It was a good day today. It was one of those days when you've got programmes all lined up and random stuff happen in between the programmes filling in the gaps. There was this thing organized by the International Student Centre, going to the MINT toy museum, at a steal of SGD6 inclusive of to-and-fro bus rides and the entrance fees. The original entrance fees cost SGD15 per pax ok. (Wahey, score!) So we gathered at the NTU Chinese Heritage Centre in the morning, expecting to go to the toy museum, when they made us watch some documentaries on overseas Chinese and take a tour around the Chinese Heritage Centre. I don't mind it so much 'coz I like history and stuff but what I didn't like was how they only casually mentioned the Chinese Heritage Centre tour like in one line in the email, and blew up the toy museum, when actually the Chinese Heritage Centre tour took longer than the toy museum tour! Just felt like the toy museum was some kind of ploy to trick us into going into the Chinese Heritage Centre.
"Chinese Heritage Centre" is very tiresome to type.
So then we started the toy museum tour finally at 1pm. The museum was alright. I think SGD15 is a bit pricey, but since I paid only SGD6 (inclusive of transport, wahey, score!) it was okay. The morning of learning about overseas Chinese and the history of NTU was worth it after all. I had made an appointment with Yuen to meet up with a bunch of people "looking for intellectual discussion" at 7:30pm, so since I was free till then me and Roman went to SMU to play boardgames at the Settler's Cafe. And yes I kicked his ass big time, thank you for asking.
So at 7:15pm I met up with Yuen who was in this other meeting with this chap who shoots artsy photos and videos. Yuen's in theatre. She gets featured in newspapers often. She performs for international audiences. I'm so cool, I got celebrity friends, yeah! After the brief meeting we met up with the intellectual crowd and talked philosophy, politics, near death experiences and the Mormon episode in South Park. It was more fun than the toy museum but less fun than board games. Just wanted to give you a scale. Yeah I know all this "intellectual" stuff sounds dodgy and mildly disturbing, long story on how I got into this, lazy to elaborate, Yuen broadens my social circle and she's a celebrity and I'm so cool, I got celebrity friends, yeah!
After that, took the MRT home, stopped by Fairprice Xtra, didn't buy anything, and finally came back. I got two blog comments and three emails, yay! Although you guys aren't celebrities I love you anyway ;) mwah mwah
ok sleepy already bye.
My happening weekend.
I just realized that the pictures I took were in 6MP quality and they're like 1.4megs each. Lazy to upload. So you'll just have to take my word that yesterday me and Jia Ling went to Punggol to take pictures of some lalang field. Yeah, like WTF right, we probably have lalang all over Malaysia but since we're in Singapore, we do what the cooler Singaporeans do and take an MRT to the furthest station of the Purple Line and take artsy pictures of wild grass.
This picture is taken from this forum. Yeah I know it's heavily photoshopped and you can see the HDBs from afar, but one can imagine. So me and Jia Ling, filled with romantic notions of lalang fields and purple skies, equipped ourselves with my dad's camera and her school camera (since we got both our cameras stolen in KK), met at 7:30am and went all the way to Punggol to brave the elements.
Actually it wasn't half bad. The weather was very fine, and because Punggol is mostly flat and empty land, the breeze was just fantastic. We trekked right across a lalang field - I was fine because I wore long pants and did not use my arms too much to fend off the lalangs, but Jia Ling got scratches all over - only to find out that there was a huge ass road just about 50 metres away from our haphazard zigzag lalang route. And Punggol is almost uninhabited (well - by Singaporean standards), which is a super plus point for anywhere in Singapore, as we were the only two crazy people taking syok sendiri pictures by the grassy bank of a pretty much empty road.
There's a house there called Matilda House which was erected since 1902 but now it's deserted, fenced up by the authorities for conservation purposes I guess. It's actually quite pretty if you ignore the ugly fences around. Also Punggol is near the sea, though we opted to go to the beach some other time because it was noon already and we were hungry. Then we took an LRT just for the heck of it, and had this aerial view of Punggol's many flat blocks of grass, which, with a sinking feeling in my heart I knew would be dominated by HDBs very soon. Why else would they build a huge (and I do mean HUGE) MRT building and the LRTs if they weren't expecting a large population? Sigh.
Afternoon we headed back to civilization - to Clarke Quay to have lunch. There's this Japanese food court at this place called Liang Court at Clarke Quay and I had a pretty decent Curry Don there, with a really nice Japanese fruity beer from the supermarket beside. Yum =) Then we met Jia Ling's friend Singaporean Irene and went to Chinatown. I know, Chinatown, on the weekend before Chinese New Year, in Singapore. You bet we saw all the population that we didn't see in Punggol that morning. You just have to know that I hate crowds but I'll do you guys a favour and refrain from whining about it. But Irene's a cool chick and I enjoyed spending time with her. She's on a mission to take pictures of all the cows that she can spot, bersempena the Bull's year. Her goal's 60. During the Year of the Boar she took 70+ pictures of pigs, with no repeats. She gets a kick out of making digital collages out of them.
I hung around with the girls till about 5pm, after which I headed to Bugis, another horribly crowded place where you literally get pushed around by the people if you don't walk at a decent pace. Met up with Yuen and Roman there. We went to Arab Street to have dinner, where people actually spoke Malay (yay!) when taking orders, but the place we were at had horrible service so I ended up not eating there. There were some people doing some reality TV shooting (something like The Amazing Race) for Suria Channel, which is a Malay channel, so we hung around and watched a guy puke his guts out while being forced to eat this platter of stuff. And they weren't even seriously gross stuff, I mean there was petai and kacang botol and some cow's tongue (cooked) and some other raw vegetables. Unpleasant but not quite my puke threshold yet - I think I draw the line at raw invertebrates. Before that line it should still be alright.
We walked around the Bugis area a bit, tried to catch a movie but there wasn't anything on, a board game cafe but it had closed down already, so we ended up going back home. I was pretty knackered anyway - I did a fair bit of walking the whole day and I had to wake up early for today morning, to walk the Southern Ridges with a bunch of Couchsurfers.
And so that was what I did this morning, woke up at 7am and went to Buona Vista MRT where I met the other 15+ people to do the 7km walk. It wasn't the whole trail, we missed the West Coast Park but I heard it wasn't anything too grand anyway. Met some really interesting people - a couple of Malaysians (Finally! Malaysians everywhere are so elusive to me, even in Singapore) , some Indian guys who gave me good tips of where to go to in India (Ganga River, Sikkim, Darjeeling, Goa) and where to avoid (Calcutta), some Germans (but of course), and some interesting Singaporeans and some others. Ahh. A walk like this is really great for meeting people because you're on the move all the time and you get to really mingle around doing casual conversation while walking and exchange talk partners after a while. Didn't really take in too much of the scenery because I was too busy talking all the time. Good excuse to go again! I don't think I've talked to so many strangers in a long while now.
Which is why after the walk and lunch I went to Jurong Point for some grocery shopping and said "have a good day" to the cashier who seemed pleasantly surprised. After that I waved to a cute baby who was as expressionless as it was cute, and said hi to a little boy at the bus stop who, after my friendly greeting, fled back to his mum's side and avoided my eyes. I appear to invoke indifference or fear in children.
Came back to Grad Hall, had a dribbly shower and took a good nap. Woke up around 6 and went to Canteen 11 for dinner. Then came back up and watched some trashy American movies. Milo Ventimiglia is gorgeous.
I'm glad to say I didn't do one bit of work this weekend. My legs are immersed in lactic acid though. La di da gonna chill out somemore and then go to bed.
This picture is taken from this forum. Yeah I know it's heavily photoshopped and you can see the HDBs from afar, but one can imagine. So me and Jia Ling, filled with romantic notions of lalang fields and purple skies, equipped ourselves with my dad's camera and her school camera (since we got both our cameras stolen in KK), met at 7:30am and went all the way to Punggol to brave the elements.Actually it wasn't half bad. The weather was very fine, and because Punggol is mostly flat and empty land, the breeze was just fantastic. We trekked right across a lalang field - I was fine because I wore long pants and did not use my arms too much to fend off the lalangs, but Jia Ling got scratches all over - only to find out that there was a huge ass road just about 50 metres away from our haphazard zigzag lalang route. And Punggol is almost uninhabited (well - by Singaporean standards), which is a super plus point for anywhere in Singapore, as we were the only two crazy people taking syok sendiri pictures by the grassy bank of a pretty much empty road.
There's a house there called Matilda House which was erected since 1902 but now it's deserted, fenced up by the authorities for conservation purposes I guess. It's actually quite pretty if you ignore the ugly fences around. Also Punggol is near the sea, though we opted to go to the beach some other time because it was noon already and we were hungry. Then we took an LRT just for the heck of it, and had this aerial view of Punggol's many flat blocks of grass, which, with a sinking feeling in my heart I knew would be dominated by HDBs very soon. Why else would they build a huge (and I do mean HUGE) MRT building and the LRTs if they weren't expecting a large population? Sigh.
Afternoon we headed back to civilization - to Clarke Quay to have lunch. There's this Japanese food court at this place called Liang Court at Clarke Quay and I had a pretty decent Curry Don there, with a really nice Japanese fruity beer from the supermarket beside. Yum =) Then we met Jia Ling's friend Singaporean Irene and went to Chinatown. I know, Chinatown, on the weekend before Chinese New Year, in Singapore. You bet we saw all the population that we didn't see in Punggol that morning. You just have to know that I hate crowds but I'll do you guys a favour and refrain from whining about it. But Irene's a cool chick and I enjoyed spending time with her. She's on a mission to take pictures of all the cows that she can spot, bersempena the Bull's year. Her goal's 60. During the Year of the Boar she took 70+ pictures of pigs, with no repeats. She gets a kick out of making digital collages out of them.
I hung around with the girls till about 5pm, after which I headed to Bugis, another horribly crowded place where you literally get pushed around by the people if you don't walk at a decent pace. Met up with Yuen and Roman there. We went to Arab Street to have dinner, where people actually spoke Malay (yay!) when taking orders, but the place we were at had horrible service so I ended up not eating there. There were some people doing some reality TV shooting (something like The Amazing Race) for Suria Channel, which is a Malay channel, so we hung around and watched a guy puke his guts out while being forced to eat this platter of stuff. And they weren't even seriously gross stuff, I mean there was petai and kacang botol and some cow's tongue (cooked) and some other raw vegetables. Unpleasant but not quite my puke threshold yet - I think I draw the line at raw invertebrates. Before that line it should still be alright.
We walked around the Bugis area a bit, tried to catch a movie but there wasn't anything on, a board game cafe but it had closed down already, so we ended up going back home. I was pretty knackered anyway - I did a fair bit of walking the whole day and I had to wake up early for today morning, to walk the Southern Ridges with a bunch of Couchsurfers.
And so that was what I did this morning, woke up at 7am and went to Buona Vista MRT where I met the other 15+ people to do the 7km walk. It wasn't the whole trail, we missed the West Coast Park but I heard it wasn't anything too grand anyway. Met some really interesting people - a couple of Malaysians (Finally! Malaysians everywhere are so elusive to me, even in Singapore) , some Indian guys who gave me good tips of where to go to in India (Ganga River, Sikkim, Darjeeling, Goa) and where to avoid (Calcutta), some Germans (but of course), and some interesting Singaporeans and some others. Ahh. A walk like this is really great for meeting people because you're on the move all the time and you get to really mingle around doing casual conversation while walking and exchange talk partners after a while. Didn't really take in too much of the scenery because I was too busy talking all the time. Good excuse to go again! I don't think I've talked to so many strangers in a long while now.
Which is why after the walk and lunch I went to Jurong Point for some grocery shopping and said "have a good day" to the cashier who seemed pleasantly surprised. After that I waved to a cute baby who was as expressionless as it was cute, and said hi to a little boy at the bus stop who, after my friendly greeting, fled back to his mum's side and avoided my eyes. I appear to invoke indifference or fear in children.
Came back to Grad Hall, had a dribbly shower and took a good nap. Woke up around 6 and went to Canteen 11 for dinner. Then came back up and watched some trashy American movies. Milo Ventimiglia is gorgeous.
I'm glad to say I didn't do one bit of work this weekend. My legs are immersed in lactic acid though. La di da gonna chill out somemore and then go to bed.
Shoes are overrated.
Yesterday I wore one of my favourite pairs of heels to window shop with Jia Ling. About two hours into our foray into Orchard Street's labyrinth of glitzy display windows and mannequins, the right heel went kaput. (Sidenote: I didn't know that - but kaput is actually a German word. It doesn't look German does it? It looks kind of Southeast Asian actually.)
Long story short I spent a good five hours walking around Orchard Road and Clarke Quay barefoot. It is a most interesting experience. I can attest to the fact that Singapore floors are very clean, especially in the malls. You could probably eat off those in Takashimaya.
You'd be surprised how many different textures your bare feet can pick up. Escalators are obviously not that nice to ride on because of the ridges, and the best tiles I walked on was at Clarke Quay, which had an almost silken texture. Because it rained I got to wash my feet in puddles. Walking on soggy carpets is kinda gross though. And walking on grass can be deceptive because there are sharp little pebbles there! Bloody grass.
The shopping trip was mostly fruitless except for a World Map that I bought, and pinned up. The quality of my camera is really crappy but here's what my desk kinda looks like right now. I also got little map pins and stuck them on places I'd been.
All the glorious expanse of places waiting to be explored and discovered! I'm itching for my next trip. Although the priority right now is to save money for the further places, but India, China, Vietnam and Borneo look extremely inviting. If you had 21 days of annual leave at your disposal, where would you go?
Long story short I spent a good five hours walking around Orchard Road and Clarke Quay barefoot. It is a most interesting experience. I can attest to the fact that Singapore floors are very clean, especially in the malls. You could probably eat off those in Takashimaya.
You'd be surprised how many different textures your bare feet can pick up. Escalators are obviously not that nice to ride on because of the ridges, and the best tiles I walked on was at Clarke Quay, which had an almost silken texture. Because it rained I got to wash my feet in puddles. Walking on soggy carpets is kinda gross though. And walking on grass can be deceptive because there are sharp little pebbles there! Bloody grass.
The shopping trip was mostly fruitless except for a World Map that I bought, and pinned up. The quality of my camera is really crappy but here's what my desk kinda looks like right now. I also got little map pins and stuck them on places I'd been.
All the glorious expanse of places waiting to be explored and discovered! I'm itching for my next trip. Although the priority right now is to save money for the further places, but India, China, Vietnam and Borneo look extremely inviting. If you had 21 days of annual leave at your disposal, where would you go?
Pewter = Sn + Sb + Cu
A fellow couchsurfer Achilles (his real name) and I went to Royal Selangor yesterday for a tour and to try out its School of Hard Knocks, just for the heck of it. Life's short, you gotta do something totally random once in a while.
I don't know what I was expecting of the Royal Selangor factory, but it wasn't this:
I mean, for a brand that's supposed to be more than 100 years old, I'd expected something more rickety and erm... yellow? This factory was built some 40 years ago, and in 2004 they opened the visitor centre, which is the impressive structure you see above. And do you see the round cylindrical object, at the right side? (picture can be enlarged by clicking on it) It is actually a giant beer tankard, shown below.
This tankard is the world's largest pewter tankard, and got into the Guinness World Record in 1987. It's about 2 metres tall, weighs about 1.6tonnes and fills about 2,800 litres of beer. Reportedly that is 20 years' supply of beer for an Australian. Why the trivia chose to single out Aussies is anybody's guess.
You can bathe in it, make miniature giant tankard keychains out of it and sell each for RM60, or dunk your kids in it. I know! So useful right?
The Visitor Centre's really impressive. Someone obviously put a lot of planning into the layout, which takes you by some awesome antique exhibits and interactive displays, then to the factory (unfortunately it was closed on Sunday) and a close-up look at craftspeople demonstrating their work, and finally to the gift shop.
This is how the entrance looks like from within.
And this is the employee's handprint wall. Employees who have worked for more than five years, get their handprint on the wall, with their names engraved below. It's so cool! I mean, since that Royal Selangor was established in 1885, you've got your handprint along with history! It's meaningful, aesthetically pleasing and totally ingenious. I want to work with Royal Selangor!
I took a video of how they knocked uniform dents with a hammer onto a tankard, which makes the tankard look like the below picture in the end, but uploading takes ages and it doesn't take much imagination to imagine hammering.
I tried out the hammering, and I can tell you that it is much harder than it looks. For one, you need to make sure that your aim is precise and to the dot. Secondly, it is imperative that every single knock is of equal pressure, to make the size of the dents uniform. It really makes you appreciate the art. Here's a picture of me finding out that I have really crappy aim.
The tour then led us to the School of Hard Knocks, the reason that we came to Royal Selangor at the first place.
Basically you are given a sheet of pewter with "Royal Selangor Apprentice Pewtersmith" embellished on the bottom, then you hammer your name onto it. I botched mine horribly because of my shaky hands, but at least there's only one piece in the whole wide world. For better or for worse.
You then use the mallet (see my hand) and knock the sheet of pewter against the mold. The end product is a pewter bowl. And here I am, grinning like an idiot, knocking my bowl into shape. I had to put this in to give you an idea because I forgot to take a picture of the end product and I'm lazy to take a picture now. Maklumlah lying in bed propped up with pillows and blogging.
After some labour-intensive knocking, which is good therapy if you're furious ("Die! Die! Die!!!!"), you get to keep the bowl, the apron and a gleaming certificate that certifies that the bowl is handmade by you, all for RM50.
Me and Achilles broke into a brawl when we finished because we couldn't decide whose bowl was nicer. (It was his, but I'm a sore loser.) Gosh the grin's stuck to my face!
After the School of Hard Knocks, we went back to the exhibits because the initial tour given was the short tour, as we had to hurry to meet the other two "apprentices" for the knocking session. With our end products snugly fit into the Royal Selangor box and paper bag, we proceeded for a leisurely tour, supposedly on our own till a guide pleasantly materialized out of thin air and gave us helpful explanations as we walked around.
The staff in Royal Selangor are really nice and friendly, not to mention multi-lingual. The Indian guy who attended to us initially had to switch to another group later, because he spoke Japanese, and they were, well, Japanese. (They could have been Japanese-speaking Koreans but I prefer to keep life simple.)
And this is not your regular granddad. He is Yong Koon (formerly Yong Koon Seong but for unexplained reasons cut his name short), the founder of Selangor Pewter, back in 1885. He was originally from Shantou, China, but migrated to Malaya. In fact I was kind of surprised that Royal Selangor is a family business. With its regal name I expected it to be connected to the Sultan somehow, and I'd always assumed that it was a government-linked business.
But no, I was wrong, it has been four generations now and Royal Selangor is still going strong. Here is a longer NST writeup on the history quoted by fellow blogger Sophie if you're interested. It's an interesting read involving a lucky melon pot and how "Royal" was bestowed upon Selangor Pewter's name. But, having pored over the family story (more on this later), I can add upon the part on the late Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah, on how he used to shop for his pewter, and "invariably" knocked 30% off the price at the end, haha! So the Sultan does haggle, like a normal person! I feel much closer to royalty now.
And this was the first ever factory, back in the days when things were rickety and yellow. Scroll up and compare this to the enormous structure right now. Impressive.
And this was the quality seal on the products in the olden days before their branding became Selangor Pewter. It reads "Yu He Zu Xi", which means "Jade Peace Pure Tin".
So then we gamboled around the other exhibits, some which totally satisfy your inner child, like the Chamber of Chimes (jam session, anyone?) and the huge scale below which does not give you your weight, but is fun to clamber on anyway. I say weighing scales should totally be like this.
And there was the Hall of Finishes, a walkway of pewter-tiles-clad pillars. The tiles demonstrate different types of finishing that can be done on pewter, whether you knock it, pour it into a mold or scratch it viciously with your fingernails. By the way, pewter has a relatively low melting point, at 250 degrees Celsius. Any failed product and scrappings found around the factory is melted and recycled again.
Closer look of a pewter tile.
Here's the Hall of Frames, with about 200 photo frames of random shape and sizes.
Close up of a pewter ingot, which each weighs 45kg.
Money tree.
After going through all the exhibits (including a really cool dome-shaped interactive screen where Achilles and I waxed our knowledge over pewter trivia learnt from the tour), we finally ended up in the giftshop. Deciding to go high end, we went into the Comyns (subsidiary of Royal Selangor) giftshop, which sells silverware.
We saw a candelabra which costs RM103,000, and a bowl which costs RM600,000.
We decided that we are still, deep in our hearts, pewter people.
Oh btw Comyns also sold some really cool pendants, rings and such made from fragments of china from the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644), and they are so. incredibly. awesome. The average price is about RM400-RM500 I think, which is miniscule compared to candelabras and whatnot. I am so gonna get one when my financial situation stabilizes in Singapore. I mean, you're owning a piece of history of at least 300 years ago. As Mastercard would say, that's priceless.
Then, while waiting for my parents to finish their walk in Setapak, Achilles and I flipped through The Royal Selangor Story, written by Chen May Yee, great granddaughter of Yong Koon. The book is filled with amusing anecdotes (like the Sultan haggling) and how the Yong family treated their workers like family, how a certain descendant (can't remember names) was flogged by his dad in the factory for sneaking out to play guli (marbles) instead of helping.
We also came to the conclusion that people started smiling in photographs circa the 1960s. Before that the proper etiquette was to grimace at the camera.
Only a family member would be able to write something as endearing and intimate as the Royal Selangor Story. I would have bought the book if it didn't cost a frigging RM95. Why is living so expensive??
All in all, I highly recommend the Royal Selangor tour and the School of Hard Knocks. The tour's free, the knocking's RM50 and optional. The exhibits are good, the tour is well-designed and amusing yet educational. You get a complimentary cold drink out of a quaint pewter mug, and appreciation of how the pewter ware in Royal Selangor are painstakingly crafted, like they were before, a century ago. And, if you're not butt poor like me, the pewter ware in the giftshop are of utmost quality, attested by the demand from all over the world (Royal Selangor is distributed over 20 countries) .
Official website is here, visitor centre website is here.
Wow. This post took me about three hours. Hope you guys enjoyed the pictures. (Three hours can! Show me some love lah) I should probably shower now.
I don't know what I was expecting of the Royal Selangor factory, but it wasn't this:
I mean, for a brand that's supposed to be more than 100 years old, I'd expected something more rickety and erm... yellow? This factory was built some 40 years ago, and in 2004 they opened the visitor centre, which is the impressive structure you see above. And do you see the round cylindrical object, at the right side? (picture can be enlarged by clicking on it) It is actually a giant beer tankard, shown below.
This tankard is the world's largest pewter tankard, and got into the Guinness World Record in 1987. It's about 2 metres tall, weighs about 1.6tonnes and fills about 2,800 litres of beer. Reportedly that is 20 years' supply of beer for an Australian. Why the trivia chose to single out Aussies is anybody's guess.
You can bathe in it, make miniature giant tankard keychains out of it and sell each for RM60, or dunk your kids in it. I know! So useful right?
The Visitor Centre's really impressive. Someone obviously put a lot of planning into the layout, which takes you by some awesome antique exhibits and interactive displays, then to the factory (unfortunately it was closed on Sunday) and a close-up look at craftspeople demonstrating their work, and finally to the gift shop.
This is how the entrance looks like from within.
And this is the employee's handprint wall. Employees who have worked for more than five years, get their handprint on the wall, with their names engraved below. It's so cool! I mean, since that Royal Selangor was established in 1885, you've got your handprint along with history! It's meaningful, aesthetically pleasing and totally ingenious. I want to work with Royal Selangor!
I took a video of how they knocked uniform dents with a hammer onto a tankard, which makes the tankard look like the below picture in the end, but uploading takes ages and it doesn't take much imagination to imagine hammering.
I tried out the hammering, and I can tell you that it is much harder than it looks. For one, you need to make sure that your aim is precise and to the dot. Secondly, it is imperative that every single knock is of equal pressure, to make the size of the dents uniform. It really makes you appreciate the art. Here's a picture of me finding out that I have really crappy aim.
The tour then led us to the School of Hard Knocks, the reason that we came to Royal Selangor at the first place.
Basically you are given a sheet of pewter with "Royal Selangor Apprentice Pewtersmith" embellished on the bottom, then you hammer your name onto it. I botched mine horribly because of my shaky hands, but at least there's only one piece in the whole wide world. For better or for worse.
You then use the mallet (see my hand) and knock the sheet of pewter against the mold. The end product is a pewter bowl. And here I am, grinning like an idiot, knocking my bowl into shape. I had to put this in to give you an idea because I forgot to take a picture of the end product and I'm lazy to take a picture now. Maklumlah lying in bed propped up with pillows and blogging.
After some labour-intensive knocking, which is good therapy if you're furious ("Die! Die! Die!!!!"), you get to keep the bowl, the apron and a gleaming certificate that certifies that the bowl is handmade by you, all for RM50.Me and Achilles broke into a brawl when we finished because we couldn't decide whose bowl was nicer. (It was his, but I'm a sore loser.) Gosh the grin's stuck to my face!
After the School of Hard Knocks, we went back to the exhibits because the initial tour given was the short tour, as we had to hurry to meet the other two "apprentices" for the knocking session. With our end products snugly fit into the Royal Selangor box and paper bag, we proceeded for a leisurely tour, supposedly on our own till a guide pleasantly materialized out of thin air and gave us helpful explanations as we walked around.The staff in Royal Selangor are really nice and friendly, not to mention multi-lingual. The Indian guy who attended to us initially had to switch to another group later, because he spoke Japanese, and they were, well, Japanese. (They could have been Japanese-speaking Koreans but I prefer to keep life simple.)
And this is not your regular granddad. He is Yong Koon (formerly Yong Koon Seong but for unexplained reasons cut his name short), the founder of Selangor Pewter, back in 1885. He was originally from Shantou, China, but migrated to Malaya. In fact I was kind of surprised that Royal Selangor is a family business. With its regal name I expected it to be connected to the Sultan somehow, and I'd always assumed that it was a government-linked business.But no, I was wrong, it has been four generations now and Royal Selangor is still going strong. Here is a longer NST writeup on the history quoted by fellow blogger Sophie if you're interested. It's an interesting read involving a lucky melon pot and how "Royal" was bestowed upon Selangor Pewter's name. But, having pored over the family story (more on this later), I can add upon the part on the late Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah, on how he used to shop for his pewter, and "invariably" knocked 30% off the price at the end, haha! So the Sultan does haggle, like a normal person! I feel much closer to royalty now.
And this was the first ever factory, back in the days when things were rickety and yellow. Scroll up and compare this to the enormous structure right now. Impressive.
And this was the quality seal on the products in the olden days before their branding became Selangor Pewter. It reads "Yu He Zu Xi", which means "Jade Peace Pure Tin".
So then we gamboled around the other exhibits, some which totally satisfy your inner child, like the Chamber of Chimes (jam session, anyone?) and the huge scale below which does not give you your weight, but is fun to clamber on anyway. I say weighing scales should totally be like this.
And there was the Hall of Finishes, a walkway of pewter-tiles-clad pillars. The tiles demonstrate different types of finishing that can be done on pewter, whether you knock it, pour it into a mold or scratch it viciously with your fingernails. By the way, pewter has a relatively low melting point, at 250 degrees Celsius. Any failed product and scrappings found around the factory is melted and recycled again.
Closer look of a pewter tile.
Here's the Hall of Frames, with about 200 photo frames of random shape and sizes.
Close up of a pewter ingot, which each weighs 45kg.
Money tree.
After going through all the exhibits (including a really cool dome-shaped interactive screen where Achilles and I waxed our knowledge over pewter trivia learnt from the tour), we finally ended up in the giftshop. Deciding to go high end, we went into the Comyns (subsidiary of Royal Selangor) giftshop, which sells silverware.We saw a candelabra which costs RM103,000, and a bowl which costs RM600,000.
We decided that we are still, deep in our hearts, pewter people.
Oh btw Comyns also sold some really cool pendants, rings and such made from fragments of china from the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644), and they are so. incredibly. awesome. The average price is about RM400-RM500 I think, which is miniscule compared to candelabras and whatnot. I am so gonna get one when my financial situation stabilizes in Singapore. I mean, you're owning a piece of history of at least 300 years ago. As Mastercard would say, that's priceless.
Then, while waiting for my parents to finish their walk in Setapak, Achilles and I flipped through The Royal Selangor Story, written by Chen May Yee, great granddaughter of Yong Koon. The book is filled with amusing anecdotes (like the Sultan haggling) and how the Yong family treated their workers like family, how a certain descendant (can't remember names) was flogged by his dad in the factory for sneaking out to play guli (marbles) instead of helping.
We also came to the conclusion that people started smiling in photographs circa the 1960s. Before that the proper etiquette was to grimace at the camera.
Only a family member would be able to write something as endearing and intimate as the Royal Selangor Story. I would have bought the book if it didn't cost a frigging RM95. Why is living so expensive??
All in all, I highly recommend the Royal Selangor tour and the School of Hard Knocks. The tour's free, the knocking's RM50 and optional. The exhibits are good, the tour is well-designed and amusing yet educational. You get a complimentary cold drink out of a quaint pewter mug, and appreciation of how the pewter ware in Royal Selangor are painstakingly crafted, like they were before, a century ago. And, if you're not butt poor like me, the pewter ware in the giftshop are of utmost quality, attested by the demand from all over the world (Royal Selangor is distributed over 20 countries) .
Official website is here, visitor centre website is here.
Wow. This post took me about three hours. Hope you guys enjoyed the pictures. (Three hours can! Show me some love lah) I should probably shower now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
